I don’t usually switch out my summer and winter clothes. I just leave everything in the closet year round. But this year, it felt necessary.
I’ve been at my new job for a little over a year now. At my last office job we could wear jeans everyday, and believe me, I did. Total jeans girl here. My current job is no jeans, so I’ve been wearing a lot of dresses and dress pants, meaning I have a lot more clothes but still the same small closet.
I’ve also been lazy about bringing my clean clothes up from the drying line in the basement. There was no way all those clothes would fit along with what was already hanging up in my closet.
Time for a clean up. My mom had a yard sale recently so I had purged some items for that, but there was still plenty left to move around.
I sorted through everything by type. I was specifically looking for spring and summer items that I wouldn’t be grabbing for during the fall and winter. Dresses and skirts were first on my list, and those filled two medium sized fabric bins. Then I moved to shorts and short-sleeved tops. I am always cold, so I figured I wouldn’t need to leave out too many summery shirts, though I did save out a couple for those warmer fall days. Those filled up a big fabric bin.
Last year I lost 20+ pounds but unfortunately I’ve put it all back on (plus a few pounds). The trousers I bought last year are currently a no-go, but I don’t want to part with them yet because I am actively working on losing the weight. I moved the pants to the dresser and decided to give myself 6 months to fit into them. After that it would be time to let them go.
I had some sweaters in fabric bins under my bed. I thought about putting them in my dresser, but then decided against it because I’m such an out-of- sight-out-of-mind person that I was afraid I’d forget about any that weren’t on top.
After hanging up the sweaters, I evaluated my closet space. It was looking pretty good and still had some room to work with.
I tackled my t-shirts next. I used to wear t-shirts every day, but as my style has changed I’ve moved away from them. But I don’t necessarily want to get rid of them, at least not all of them. I did a quick sort of the tees to decide what to keep and what I was willing to part with. I didn’t do well, only getting rid of xxxxxxx. That’s okay, I’ll revisit those again some other day.
I consider my closet the prime real estate. I’m not a big fan of dressers, though I did recently purchase one secondhand because the closet was becoming too full.
I want the things I grab for daily in the closet. Probably because I don’t have closet doors. I go for ease, remember, and I like to be able to see what I have. I did make an exception for bras and underwear which I’ve found more convenient in the top drawer. I’m thinking about moving my socks there, too, just haven’t done it yet.
Since I don’t reach for t-shirts often, it made sense to move them to the dresser. I used the file fold method and reused some fabric bins to keep them tidy and visible.
With the clothes bar mostly sorted out I turned my attention to how I was going to store the fabric bins. Previously I had the small and medium bins on the white shelves under the bar and the large bins went under my bed.
I wanted to move away from keeping the largest ones on the bed, though, because the stabilizer bed legs make getting the bins in and out quite wonky and cumbersome, and if a task takes extra work, I’m less likely to maintain the system.
The solution: I moved the big bins to the white shelves and put the medium bins on the shelf above the bar. (The small bins were used to hold t-shirts in the dresser). Instead of 5 baskets on the shelf, I now have 3, and 3 medium fabric bins stacked on each side. I think this will work for now, especially since I want to keep as much from under the bed as possible because I need to schedule a carpet cleaning.
I still have a some empty space on the shelves, and I’m considering a couple different options that I’ll reveal in a future post.
What do you think of the newly organized closet? Like it? Not feeling it? Let me know in the comments below. I’m always open to suggestions 🙂
